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As many homeless shelters across the U.S. remain at or near capacity, the country faces complicated challenges. In his fiscal 2017 budget, President Obama proposed spending $11 billion over the next 10 years to fight family homelessness. Gregory Talley used to sleep in a park, at an airport, or under a bridge. The 50-year-old has been homeless for more than 10 years. "It is hard. It’s hard to live homeless. You filled every day trying to find out where you are going to get something to eat. If I hadn’t found wonderful Fairfax County Kennedy Shelter, I wouldn't know where I would be by now.I might be dead," Talley said. The Kennedy Shelter is one of the facilities New Hope Housing provides for homeless families and individuals in the Washington suburbs. Pam Michell has dedicated her life to making the lives of this vulnerable population better as executive director of the nonprofit organization. Felt epiphany in Africa “I went to Africa in 1985. And I saw an immense amount of poverty, but I saw so much hope. And I wondered what I was doing at home in my middle-class American life and decided that I should try to do something that would bring hope to people," Michell said. "It is convenient, homelessness just happened to be what was around me. So I picked that,” she added. When Michell began working with New Hope Housing 25 years ago, its three shelters had about 80 beds. Now, it has 350 beds and serves about 1,500 homeless people every year. | 
